Highlights and initiatives

This was a new area of work for Renaissance East Midlands in 2007, with the digital access development officer appointed in April.

A digital access framework was developed following consultation with the region’s museums. This was researched and written by Caroline Moore and Fiona Marshall and covers the period 2008 - 2009. The framework, available below, was published in March 2008.

Digital Access Framework March 2008 (1600 kb)

Please note that the document is interactive: click on the buttons at the top of any page to move to a different section, click on the 'Digital Access Framework' icon to get back to the contents page and all web links are live. Should the web links not work, this probably means the web addresses have changed since the document was published. The correct links can be found on the East Midlands' digital collections page alongside digital collections developed since March 2008.

As well as developing the framework, thanks to the work of the Digital Access to Collections Panel:

• 24 museums have been supported in developing digital access within their museums through one-to-one advice and support.
• 30 museums attended a targeted training session ‘Writing for the Web’. 
• 19 Museums have been supported to develop digital collection records on the cross domain portal ‘MICHAEL’ that aims to provide simple and quick access to digital collections from 16 different European countries.
• Four museums are developing item level records for the ‘Peoples Network Discover Service’ a portal that provides access to around 500,000 records of items in museum, library and archive collections. 
• An audit of digital projects, digitisation equipment and facilities within museums has been carried out.
• A digital image standards page has been created with links on how to digitise images.